ith which it presents many points of resemblance, I know few
things more tiresome than the voyage up the Yarra in an intercolonial
steamer of 600 or 700 tons, which goes aground every ten minutes, and
generally, as if on purpose, just in front of a boiling-down
establishment.

If the Australian cities can claim a sad eminence, if not an actual
supremacy, in the number of their public houses, of which there are no
less than 1,120 in Melbourne, I am sorry to say that they are as much
behind London in their ideas of the comforts of an hotel as London is
behind San Francisco. Melbourne is certainly better off than Sydney or
Adelaide, but bad are its best hotels. Of these Menzies' and the Oriental
are most to be recommended; after these try the United Club Hotel, or, if
you be a bachelor, Scott's. The hotels, I think without exception, derive
their chief income from the bar traffic, with which, at all but the few I
have mentioned, you cannot help being brought more or less into contact.
Lodgers are quite a secondary consideration. This is very disagreeable
for ladies. The best hotels, moreover, have no _table d'hote_--only the
old-fashioned coffee and commercial rooms; so that if you are travelling
_en famille_ you have no choice but to have your meals in a private
sitting-room. For a bachelor, who is not particular so long as his rooms
are clean, and can put up with plain fare, there need, however, be no
difficulty in getting accommodation; but anyone who wishes to be
comfortable had better live at the clubs, which in every one of the
'capitals' are most liberal in their hospitality, and have bedrooms on
their premises. Visitors to the colony are made honorary members for a
month on the introduction of any two members, and the term is extended to
six months on the small subscription of a guinea a month. The Melbourne
Club is the best appointed in the Colonies. The rooms are comfortable,
and decently though by no means luxuriously furnished, and a very fair
table is kept. The servants wear full livery. There is a small library,
all the usual appurtenances of a London club, and a racquet-court. The
other clubs, though less pretentious, are all comfortable.

Your colonial rarely walks a step farther than he can help, and of course
laziness is well provided with cabs and omnibuses. You can take your
choice between one-horse waggonettes and hansoms, though a suspicion of
Bohemia still lingers about the latter. Happily Mrs. Grund